The Hindu : Sport / Chess : Pontsy outclasses Murali Karthikeyan

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Pontsy outclasses Murali Karthikeyan

J. Raakesh Natraj

S.P. Sethuraman lets Aravindh Chidambaram off the hook
Neelotpal Das and B. Adhiban notch up routine wins

Chennai: A difference in rating of at least 400 points separated each player from his opponent across the top ten boards in the third round of the Chennai International Open chess tournament, here on Wednesday.

The pairing did not throw up too many upsets as Evgeny Pontsy, Yaroslav Zherbukh, Tamir Nabaty and Mikhailo Oleksienko got the better of their lower-ranked Indian opponents on the four leader boards.

Eleven-year old Murali Karthikeyan matched Evgeny Pontsy for most parts of the contest, but as he ran out of time, his queen and minor piece was outmuscled by Pontsy's rooks and bishop. The Indian's resistance ended at around the three-hour mark.

Zherbukh, playing white, took advantage of a sluggish start from T.R. Shanmuganathan, pinning black's pieces to the back of the board for long stretches. An open file Zherbukh lined up his doubled rook and queen along the open file to force a win.

Tamir Nabaty benefitted from a failed counter-attack by K.V. Shantaram, to win on board three. Nabaty's bishop threatened white's king side, but Shantaram ignored the danger to launch his knight into black's ranks.

Unfortunately, white could not cause much damage while Nabaty's bishop and queen cleaned out Shantaram's king side off his rook and minor piece to seal the win.

S.P. Sethuraman, who could only manage a draw in the second round, was an exchange up in his third round match but oversaw a straight forward repetitive check manoeuvre to let Aravindh Chidambaram, the under-12 national champion, off the hook.

S. Vijayalakshmi, Neelotpal Das and B. Adhiban notched up routine wins to claim three points out of three while, R.R. Laxman and Arun Prasad tallied 2.5 points each. Earlier in the second round, draws against lower ranked opponents saw S.P. Sethuraman, Abhijeet Gupta, Arun Prasad and Deepan Chakkravarthy slip behind the leaders pack.

Important results (Indians unless stated otherwise, round three): Evgeny Pontsy (Isl, 3) bt Murali Karthikeyan (2), Yaroslav Zherebukh (Ukr, 3) bt T.R. Shanmuganathan (2), K.V. Shantaram (2) lost to Tamir Nabaty (Isl, 3), S.S. Manigandan (2) lost to Mikhailo Oleksienko (Ukr, 3), B. Sekar (2) lost to B. Adhiban (3), J. Nishvin (2) lost to Henrik Danielsen (Icl, 3), Akash Iyer (2) lost to Neelotpal Das (3), S. Vijayalakshmi (3) bt R. Preethi (2), N. Surendran S. Kidambi, Pushpalata Mangal (2) lost to Alexander Areshchenko (Ukr, 2.5), T.H. Karsanji Abhijeet Gupta, S.P. Sethuraman (2) drew with Aravindh Chidambaram (2.5), Arun Prasad (2.5) bt Al Saif Abdullah (Ban, 1.5), Sanjeev Biswas (1.5) lost to R.R. Laxman (2.5).

Round two: Niaz Murshed (Ban, 1) lost to Evgeny Ponsty (Isl, 2), Abhijeet Gupta (1.5) drew with Ashwin Jayaram (1.5), Swapnil Dhopade (1.5) drew with Hannes Stefansson (Isl, 1.5), Saptarishi Roy (1) lost to Zherebukh Yaroslav (Ukr, 2), Tamir Nabati (Isl, 2) bt Somak Palit (1), Mikhailo Oleksienko (Ukr, 2) bt Vera Nebolsina (Rus, 1), A.G. Stany (1.5) drew with S.P. Sethuraman (1.5), B. Adhiban (2) bt Gudmundur Kjartansson (1), Henrik Danielsen (Isl, 2) bt Vikramaditya Kamble (1), K. Rathnakaran (1.5) drew with Arun Prasad (1.5), Neelotpal Das (2) bt Sai Krishna (1), S. Kidambi (2) bt C. Natarajan (1), Vishnu Prasanna (1.5) drew with Alexander Areshchenko (Ukr, 1.5), Nia Hua (Chn, 1.5) drew with Murali Krishna (1.5), Debaraj Chatterjee (1.5) drew with Deepan Chakravarty (1.5), R.R. Laxman (1.5) bt Arun Karthik (0.5) .

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